


Misgivings

by Deannie



Series: Dissolution [1]
Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: M/M, Past Relationship(s), dubious consent due to demon influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-10
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:13:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1907232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I feel a smile steal over my face, painful in its coldness, as I hear the rejoinder he might send my way, were he conscious. "Everybody's dying, Spengs," he'd tell me, with that rakish grin that warms me in times of trial. "Some of us are just more impatient about it." (originally published in 2002)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

> Listen, my wary one, it's far too late to unlove each other.  
>  _\--William Matthews_

 

I wonder what it is about bedside vigils that they turn a man's thoughts to maudlin sentimentality.

And yet, gazing down into a gray wasted face that was alive with humor and strength scant weeks ago, I cannot seem to stop those thoughts. I have him to myself today--except for Slimer, who has taken to wandering aimlessly through the firehouse. We are alone together for the first time since he... fell ill. Winston and Ray are in Chicago, poring through the book collection of an old occultist who _may_ have the answers. _May_. And Janine has finally agreed--albeit reluctantly--to take time for herself. I don't know what Peter said to her in those ten minutes they were alone together this morning, but it was enough to convince her to take an afternoon. Perhaps he told her he would wait for her--he wouldn't leave us without Ray and Winston here, at any rate.

But he will leave us.

Peter Venkman is dying.

I feel a smile steal over my face, painful in its coldness, as I hear the rejoinder he might send my way, were he conscious. "Everybody's dying, Spengs," he'd tell me, with that rakish grin that warms me in times of trial. "Some of us are just more impatient about it."

God, what I wouldn't give to hear him wisecrack now. After all, that was what first drew us together, really.

At the risk of sounding ineffably romantic, I believe I have loved Peter for almost twenty years. Certainly I have not been _in_ love with him for all that time, but... But I was once--and he with me.

 

I had entered that introductory parapsychology class with a good deal of trepidation and an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. Father was... less than thrilled that I had deviated from the proscribed Spengler educational plan. Bad enough I had snubbed MIT and chosen the slightly less-impressive Columbia for my studies, but to dilute my research with what seemed to him to be a simple, unproductive flight of fancy was altogether intolerable for a man who had seen my future--and was determined that it should happen just so.

I believe Mom was amused by the fights he and I engaged in during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years. She chose to marry a man of shuttered emotions, but she was always so entertained when he lost control of them. It led to little entertainment, of course, but she took what she could get, and was always so very proud of me when I stood up to him.

Though truly, it wasn't much of a rebellion. The trust fund that provided for my education was not under his control, though his modest fortune paid for much of my daily living. He could not have stopped me studying South American Indian flutes, had I wished it. He did threaten to cut off his share of my funding, but I believe I still would have chosen the path I did, regardless of how destitute it might have left me. I have only to look at Peter and Raymond both to know that a man can make it through his education on very little money indeed.

But I won the fight, and eventually the war, and walked quietly into Room 102 with a smile in my heart, if not on my face.

Until I saw him.

Eighteen years old, dark-haired, green-eyed, hard-bodied, and altogether wonderful to behold, Peter Venkman, the newest backup quarterback on Columbia's football team, sat lazily in a chair in the back row, watching each person who walked through the door, judging each; analyzing, weighing the possibilities. What he saw in me that first time, I still do not know, but I know I saw a man I could be... interested in.

My one romantic liaison with a woman, early in my freshman year, had only confirmed a hypothesis I had come up with in junior high school: I am not now, nor ever was, interested in such an involvement. Perhaps, had my father known _that_ before his death, he would have seen about denying me a good deal more than just housing costs. As it was, I had met a senior late in that first fall term, and he and I had dallied, but I am not, by nature, a very sexual creature, and I had never thought much about romantic attachments, nor their long-term consequences.

I would like to say that Peter changed all of that with one look across a crowded lecture hall, but I fear that would be lying. His raised eyebrow did induce me to settle in a chair that was strategically near his, while not so close as to seem an overt invitation. And if I managed to provide a number of conveniently empty seats around me in the process, well...

 

"You're ignoring my thought waves, buddy."

His tenor was so young then, not quite firmed up, though the humor and sarcasm were deeply engrained already. In the third week of class--during what was perhaps one of the driest lectures I have ever attended on the otherwise fascinating subject of astral projection--the beautiful young man I had met eyes with but never spoken to, finally moved to sit behind me, and his statement caused sweet, clean-smelling breath to warm my neck in a way altogether too intimate for the setting.

"I apologize," I managed to return calmly. Something in his voice raised such a challenge that I could not stop myself from adding, "perhaps the signal simply needs amplification."

A soft chuckle sent a thrill through me. "Not bad. Needs a little work, but the thought was there." He clapped a warm hand on my shoulder. "Pete Venkman."

Looking back, I wonder why he bothered. I was, and am, a man not terribly attractive, and I had seen him flirting outrageously with a number of the young women who seemed to dominate the parapyschology department. While I have never claimed to have a discerning "gaydar," I had taken this overwhelming interest in women as a sign that my probably fleeting infatuation was likely to be one-sided--if no less enjoyable for the unattainability. But there was an... invitation in his tone that I tried very hard to make myself believe was simply wishful thinking.

"Egon Spengler." My return introduction was perhaps colder than I meant it to be, because his hand left my shoulder, though I noticed--unbearably--that he did not bother to sit back in his chair.

"Think Raffles just wants to put us all to sleep so we can try this ourselves?" he asked, a lace of condescending humor overlaying his voice that I could not help but smile at.

"No doubt he believes that we might learn more through somnolent osmosis than through overt discussion."

There was a profound silence behind me, and I cringed inwardly. I do not use my vocabulary to belittle others, I simply use it because it was how I was raised. It is a habit that I have seen no reason to shed. But at times, I fear it does come off as a bit condescending in its own right.

"I'm gonna need a dictionary to get through this class, I can see," he whispered. I might have despaired of ever speaking with him again had I not detected a strong note of amusement in his tone. He seemed almost impressed. As the years have proceeded, I have discovered that Peter _is_ impressed by my ability to "tear people down" with my verbosity--though he manages to do it far more infuriatingly with his own simple idioms.

Our professor, Rafael Montiori--"Raffles" to Peter--finally closed his lecture with a strict admonition for us all to prepare for the midterm he was planning to give the next month. Given that I had read a majority of the course's required texts during my summer break, I felt more than prepared for whatever he might see fit to spring on us.

"Like anybody's going to stay awake for the test, if it's anything like his lectures," Peter muttered disdainfully as he gathered his things together. He carried a book bag that appeared to be stuffed with junk food, and seemed to have very little room for the meager stack of books he carried. I remember wondering whether he was likely to flunk out, as many athletes were wont to do. "Hey, Spengler." His call stopped me in my tracks, and I turned, a touch unwillingly, to be pierced by those stunning green eyes. "Need a study partner?"

I had seen the apparently popular young man around campus; as I passed the outskirts of the outrageously time-consumptive pep rallies, in the cafeteria, on the quad... He was everywhere--a fact that probably added to my interest in him. I admit I began, unconsciously, to shadow him. There was something indefinable about him. Something that hinted at far greater depths than a simple, shallow jock. I saw his suggestion as an unexpected chance to spend time with the unknowing object of my affection; to find out if my hypothesis was correct.

"I believe I would find that most useful, Venkman. Thank you." His face crumpled a bit in relief, and I remember misreading him for the first--and very nearly the last--time in my life. "I have already read much of the coursework," I offered, as helpful and oblivious as a Spengler can be. "I'd be glad to help you with any concepts you're having trouble with." I did not know him well enough to notice the hardening of those gorgeous eyes. "Talking out material with others is often a good way of solidifying the information in your own mind."

Had I known then what I know now, I would likely have turned a then-nonexistent thrower on myself. Peter drew himself up, a cold look stealing unaccountably onto his features. "Yeah, well, second thought, I'll get back to you, Spengler." He hefted his bag, turned brutally from me before pasting on a smile that even then I knew was fake, and heading for a bevy of girls making their way slowly from the room.

Like the idiot I was back then, I simply looked on in amazement.

 

"Spengs?"

Peter's weak call shakes me from my thoughts, and I focus on his drawn features, seeing a painful overlay of the healthy, rakish young man I met eighteen years ago.

"How are you..." My throat closes over the words. Useless, banal words that cannot bring either of us comfort now. "How are you feeling?"

It takes him a moment to compose his answer, and I wait for it, reaching out to brush his hair back from his gray forehead. I feel again the tingle that now comes with touch where Peter is concerned. An aftereffect of _her_ , no doubt. The... thing... that is stealing him away from us. The fact that she is safely beyond us--too far beyond this world to hurt him again--is faint comfort.

"Pretty stupid, actually."

A familiar refrain. He is blaming himself for this--no more than he deserves, in his mind. He broke his own cardinal rule. He let himself be taken.

He must see the despair in my eyes, and one thin hand reaches out, clasping my fingers in a radically weakened grip. "Guess this is what I get for sleeping with loose women."

Involuntarily, I smile. "Well, she certainly wasn't my type."

"Great. Advice on women from the gay guy." His tired chuckle is comforting and crushing at the same time. It seems going gently into that good night is not to be for Peter. He has far too much time to contemplate what he believes is his folly.

"Perhaps I'm the best one to give it," I reply quietly, raising him up off the pillow just enough to urge tepid water down his throat. It is getting harder and harder for him to swallow, and the IV that our personal doctor set up doesn't seem to be enough.

Nothing is going to be enough.

"Yeah, right." He grins his thanks as I lay him back down, but his eyes cloud over quickly. "Like I'm going to trust _you_ to run my love life."

_You did once._

The silent words are heard, and he grips my hand more firmly. "I'm sorry, Spengs." Green eyes close, leaving him looking even less the man he was. "I should have..."

I return my free hand to his forehead, reveling in the contact. "This wasn't your fault, Peter. You know that..." His sigh lances through me, and I cannot allow him to... to pass on without granting himself the absolution the rest of us never needed. "She came after you. She targeted _you_."

"Yeah," he replies sadly. "And like an idiot, I just took it, didn't I?" His eyes open again, and the visions in their depths are... too like my own thoughts for comfort. "Kind of makes me wish we'd... stayed together..." He pauses again for breath, this brief conversation exhausting him beyond endurance. "You know?"

"We are together, Peter," I whisper, watching him fade off from me, my fingers, as always, gripping his pulse point, praying for the slow beats to continue. "We always will be."

As his labored breathing evens out a bit with sleep, a thought comes to me unbidden, drawing me back to my musings. We'll always be together... but we very nearly weren't.

 

Room 102 was a very uncomfortable place to be for the next week or so. Peter contrived to sit far away from me, and I, puzzled, simply let him. I could not understand him. He had asked for help, and I had offered to give it. Why, now, was he spurning me? After another tedious lecture, Montiori slammed his pointer on his desk and, the class's attention retrieved, pointed to the long list of names taped to the chalkboard behind him.

"You will all be responsible for coming up with a research project. Given the large class, I have split you up into groups of four. Get your assignments, meet with your group, and have a proposal ready by class next Tuesday." His gaze took in Peter with special ire, and I wondered what the freshman had done to annoy him. "Each member of the group must write their own version of the proposal," Montiori grated, eyes still raking Peter with a disdain that, strangely, I was angered by. "I don't want to see anyone slacking off."

Ah. That was it. If anything, I became more incensed. Montiori felt that Venkman was no more than a brainless jock, floating through his classes with just enough effort to avoid ineligibility. I did not know if that were true or not, but I was angered that the man would simply assume it. Regardless of his strange ill usage of me, I was still willing to give the younger man the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was a harder worker than he appeared.

And it seemed Fate had destined that I find out for sure. I headed for the board with the rest of the class, hanging back out of the crowd, as was my way. Peter reached it long before me, and, surprisingly, turned toward me with a tight, almost feral, grin before quitting the room. Perusing the list as I arrived at it, I discovered the cause of his angry mirth. Montiori had placed us in the same group.

With a sigh, I met up with the other two members of our foursome and scheduled a tentative meeting for the next afternoon.

"So who's gonna tell Venkman?" Richard Parson had a cold, disdainful look on his face that, for some reason, made me dearly wish to hit him. "He'll probably be too busy with _football practice_ to bother joining us."

Shelly Michaels nodded. "We'll end up doing the whole thing, mark my words."

I did. I marked them angrily, and kept them in the back of my mind, where I might contemplate how to reward her for her tendency to jump to conclusions.

"I believe I know where to find him," I offered, dubious of my own claim, my voice as neutral and emotionless as ever my father's was. "I shall endeavor to persuade him to join us."

Parsons sniffed haughtily. "Good luck, Spengler."

And with that cold wish ringing in my ears, I set off to find him.

 

I did not need to look far.

"Spengler."

Peter leaned against the edge of the low wall that surrounded the garden outside of the psychology hall. His arms were crossed, his eyes hard... He was altogether a formidable figure.

"Venkman," I returned, though not so coldly as he. "Could you arrange to be available tomorrow afternoon at three?" I asked, waiting for his excuse. When it didn't come, I continued. "We were planning to meet in the library--by the card catalog."

He nodded, still cold and aloof. "My favorite place."

This continued animosity was very off-putting, and my words stumbled as I started to turn away. "Yes, well... We'll, um... see you then."

I admit to having been quite hurt, actually. Oblivious though I had always been to the seeming mysteries of social interactions, I was certainly not immune to the pain of rejection. I had hoped, wildly, for the one brief moment when he first spoke to me, to be able to cultivate a friendship with the brash and beautiful young man. That a comment by me--that at the time I had thought quite innocuous--had somehow scuttled that possibility was distressing. I turned fully from him, and headed toward my dorm, before his voice, still hard, but with a slight warmth to it, stopped me.

"So, is it just me, or are we gonna be doing this project by ourselves?"

I swung back toward him, a question plain in my eyes.

"Dicky and Shell," he added unhelpfully. At my continued lack of comprehension, he sighed mightily. "Boy, you really _are_ just as clueless as you look."

"As you are apparently as irritating as _you_ look," I shot back quickly, "I believe Professor Montiori made an error in placing us in the same group." I didn't bother with an arch 'good day', but simply turned back around, and fled.

Or attempted to, at any rate.

"Hey! You're getting better!"

The amused tone set off my usually controlled temper, and I turned on him. "If I was not driven to such infantile displays by the likes of you, perhaps I would not feel the need to practice," I grated.

"Yeah, us dumb jocks," he admitted, his tone self-deprecating in the extreme though he wore a cold smile. "That's about all we're good for, infantile displays."

"Contrary to what Professor Montiori seems to assume, I hardly think you got into Columbia simply for being a dumb jock, Peter."

His smile unaccountably warmed. "You seen some of our football team?"

I remember my anger cooling--slightly. "Football is not something I see the need to waste time on."

A shadow lodged in his gaze, a shadow I did not understand immediately, and his voice became very quiet. "Got me in here, didn't it?"

I find, looking back at myself as a young adult, that I was unconscionably classist. It was not that I felt that poorer people were somehow inferior, but simply that I had lived among the well-to-do for my entire life, and had no concept of the fact that there were others--many others--for whom going to college was a financial impossibility. At that moment, looking at the shadows in his eyes, I realized that Peter was one of those people.

My anger fled completely at that point, and I headed back toward him. "I apologize, Pete. I only meant--"

He waved a hand at me, a quirked smile that I assume now was for the uneasy way I had used the nickname with which he had initially introduced himself. In truth, it sounded very... condescending to me. There was a fire and an intelligence to him that "Pete" just did not seem to convey. "No biggie, Spengler." But I knew it was, though I was unable to broach the subject that early on. "Just... Don't judge a football player by his jersey, huh?"

 

And of course, he was right. I had judged him by his pursuits--both on the football field and in the sorority house. And I could not have been more wrong about him on either count had I purposely closed both eyes.

He was correct about our presentation, as well. While they seemed to be attentive students in class, Shelly and Richard were unbelievably lazy when it came to work outside the lecture hall, and Peter and I spent a good deal of time on our own trying to put together a project that only we seemed to care about. And the work was truly fascinating. Both our approaches to and our interests in parapsychology were vastly different. Peter was taken by the psychology of it all-- _why_ did people feel the need to believe in these things? He himself was a skeptic, for the most part, but he was simply engrossed in tracking the responses of others to what were termed unexplained phenomena.

I, on the other hand, had never been anything _but_ a believer. My terrifying experiences as a child had been more than enough to convince me that ghosts and goblins were real, so it was never a stretch to believe in psychics and telepathy as well. But that wasn't what fascinated me about the pursuit of the unknown. Quite simply, I wanted to know _how_ these things existed. How could a world that obeyed the laws of relativity coexist with a world that so patently did not?

Needless to say, our discussions--often running late into the night--were always volatile.

It was during one such late-night session that it happened. A simple thing, really, but something that changed my life forever. Something I will always thank Peter for... even after he leaves us.

And, as often happens on college campuses, it all started with beer.

"I still think it's all delusion--or at least self-created reality."

I handed him another bottle--it may have been his fourth, though I have never been sure as I was on my own third and had never been able to hold my liquor--and sat beside him on my couch. He was curled up on the cushions, turning to face me with the beautifully animated eyes of a boy who is young enough to _know_ what he believes.

"But how can you _say_ that?" I demanded, a bit too loudly. Father's money meant that I could move off campus fairly quickly, and I had a ramshackle two-room over a kindly old woman's garage. "How can _everything_ be in the mind? And isn't telepathy, by it's very definition, in the mind, anyway?"

He grinned a little drunkenly. "You think it's all real, huh?" At my nod, he chuckled. "Damn, Dad'd love you. Easiest mark this year!"

"What do you mean?" I asked. Peter said little to nothing about his parents back then, though I did know that his mother lived in Brooklyn. "Easy mark?"

He grimaced at his inadvertent slip, and I was far too in my cups to truly pursue it. "Nothing," he cut in swiftly, taking a massive pull on his beer. "Doesn't matter, what matters is..." He waggled his eyebrows outrageously. "You believe it."

"Disprove it, and I'll be happy to apologize for my naivete," I countered. Truth be told, I was feeling a good deal more... aroused... than was probably good for me. Peter, curled up far too close to me, had a brash enthusiasm that only made him look more beautiful.

"Okay," he jumped in happily, rearing onto his knees and facing me fully. "Okay, you think something, and I'll tell you what you're thinking."

"That's not a fair test, Pete," I countered, still stumbling slightly with his nickname. "You could lie and tell me you didn't know."

His hand came up in what I dimly recalled was the Boy Scout pledge. "Word of honor, Spengler. No lies." His eyebrows waggled again, and I melted. "Just think something--something really outrageous, okay? Not something I'd be able to figure out."

My mind was impaired at the time--too much alcohol. I have to remember that now, or face the embarrassment.

_I want you naked in my bed, Peter... I want to make love to you._

After a moment, I opened my eyes, and froze.

Peter was looking at me with the strangest... glow...

"You heard that." I gasped. It wasn't a question.

He took a moment, cleared his throat. "Heard what?"

I moved closer without meaning to. "What I said."

He shook his head and gave me a weak, wholly unbelievable smile. "You want a peanut butter and pineapple pizza, right?"

My hand went to his chest, and I felt the tremors starting there. "I want... something."

Though I admit that much of our drunken talk that night is a bit of a blur, what happened in that one moment is as crystal clear today as it was then. Peter's eyes dilated, his breath as harsh as my own, and, carefully, so carefully I felt he feared to break me, he bent down and kissed me. It was... while not the most incredible kiss I have ever had, certainly the most amazing I had had up until that point. Tender and firm and intense and tentative, it was a kiss that abruptly fanned the fire I had been harboring since I had seen him that first day of class.

His lips--talented in the extreme--roamed down my slightly stubbled chin, his kisses forcing my head back and to the side as he went for my jugular. God, I still remember the amazing heat of him. Whether it was indeed the alcohol, or simply the weeks of pent-up longing, I closed my eyes, surrendering to him, and moaned one word...

"Peter..."

Abruptly, his perusal of my neck stopped, and he pulled away. Opening my eyes in bewilderment, I suddenly stared into green, limitless depths, so... full. So very, very beautiful.

"Say it again, Egon," he whispered reverently, his use of my given name--the first time he'd moved beyond Spengler--shaking me with its tenderness.

"Peter," I whispered, reaching up to caress his face. "Peter."

"Nobody calls me that, Egon," he told me, a desperate hope in his tone. He almost shrugged, a diffident note creeping in. "Nobody--except Mom--"

I pulled his mouth to mine, taking his lips and tongue and heat with abandon for a long moment before pulling away a scant millimeter. "Let us keep parents out of this, shall we?" I asked, the teasing tone warring with the complete and utter _need_ of him in my voice. I brought him to me again, and he curled inward, all but in my lap in his own desire to be part of me. His light brush over my crotch sent tingles of pain and pleasure through me.

"Whoa... Um, Egon?"

The uncertainty in his voice left me abruptly cold, and I searched his face for the reason behind it.

"Look, I..." He sighed, his voice dropping to a low mutter as doubt swam in his emerald depths. "Man, never thought I'd say this, but..."

I ran my hands comfortably down his arms, and smiled. I have always been a patient man, and I felt then that waiting would be much easier than destroying the relationship before it started. I did not know if it was his own inexperience or some other fear that bade him stop, but I was willing to wait for him.

He seemed so entirely worth it.

"It's all right, Peter," I whispered softly, kissing him again, lightly this time. My face broke into a smile much larger than is my way, and I found myself chuckling.

Peter's eyes went instantly hard as they tracked up to meet mine. "What?"

I reached up a hand, trying to soothe away his defensiveness with the wrinkles furrowing his brow. "I believe you have an apology to make, Peter."

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes, and I made a note to watch myself more carefully around him. I remember wondering what could possibly have happened to him in his life that he would be so constantly on guard. "For what?"

"I believe we've just proven that telepathy works, don't you?" I tried to infuse my tone with enough gentle laughter to let him know I was neither angry nor hurt.

Now the smile filled him completely, and he put his hands on my shoulders, rubbing lightly. "Not a chance, Spengler," he said gravely. "It wasn't telepathy--just a little good, red-blooded lust."

I arched my eyebrow at him, and he chuckled.

"Do you have any idea how sexy you looked?" he asked, stilling my heart with the unbelievable truth in his voice. "God, I don't know what you were thinking, but...."

His shrug was eloquent, and I simply stared. Peter was the first person to ever find me beautiful--given my looks, I was positive he'd be the last. But that one, simple declaration gave me something that I can never forget. Something I will always treasure about him.

He saw me, and loved me...

And I will miss him so when he is gone.

 

_ring_

Moving quickly to answer the phone before it can wake Peter, I lunge to the bedside table.

"Ghostbusters, we're closed." Curt and short seems to stop most people in their tracks now. While the news of Peter's... illness... has yet to make the press, I fear we won't have to wait too much longer before his condition becomes known, and given the conclusions the doctors automatically jumped to at the hospital, I cringe at what the tabloids will come up with. Another few days without a bust, and we are bound to have the _Post_ looking for us.

"Egon, it's Winston." He sounds as tired as I feel, and I ache for him. I ache for all of us. Without Peter... This will never be the same.

"Have you had any luck?"

His sigh tells me, and I slump back into the chair beside Peter's sickbed. "Not yet. Ray's been in with his pal again for nearly an hour now, brainstorming... And I can't find jack in these books."

I nod. It was inevitable, this final failure. Tobin's has already told us we are fated to lose him. The power of a rakshasi is too formidable, once her victim has been taken. We had hoped... We had hoped that trapping her might make the difference, but...

"Did Mr. Rajin have any ideas at all?" Perhaps there is something he, as a modern expert on ancient Hindu practices, might know that we do not. A vain, desperate hope, but nearly all I have left to me.

"Not that I could tell, Egon." Winston blows out a disgusted breath. "Jesus, man, why'd she have to pick _him_?! There aren't a million other guys in New York City?"

It is a question I have never bothered to ask. I have no idea why she chose him--nor what she might have done had we not stopped her. At any event, it hardly matters now, does it?

"And why the hell didn't we see it coming?" His almost silent self-reproach is mutual. We should have noticed. We should have realized. The furtive trips to the bathroom to change, when he has never worried about his nudity before any of us, the strange moments of exhausted blankness...

Winston and Ray and I are much more to blame for this than Peter is.

My shamed silence is met with the same, and Winston finally breaks it painfully. "How's he doing?"

"As much as I have come to hate the phrase, he's holding his own." I watch Peter's eyes moving restlessly under their lids. He is almost too weak to dream, now.

"Take care of him, Egon," Winston murmurs comfortingly. "And take care of yourself, too, got it?" His voice is sudden steel, the guardian in him determined to save _someone_. "I don't want to come home and find you made yourself sick, you hear me?"

His concern wins a smile he cannot see. Without him and Ray... "How is Ray?"

Winston's voice drops. "As rose-colored-glasses as ever," he admits sadly. "Egon... Man, I'm really worried about him. If we don't find something here..."

"All we can do is be there for him, Winston." I know he hears the defeat in my voice, as I hear it in every word he says. If Raymond wishes to hold on to hope a little longer, I won't stop him. There's a small part of me that refuses to give up, as well. "Keep an eye on him."

"You got it, buddy. Tell Pete we're working on it, okay? Tell him to hang on a little longer." He is closer to tears than I believe either of us would care to admit. "Just..."

_Don't let him leave._

As if he spoke the words, I answer them. "I'll make sure he waits for you, Winston," I promise. "Take care of Ray."

"I will. Egon?" He cannot seem to find the words he wishes to say, and his frustration comes out in a violent sigh. "We'll be home tomorrow morning, I think."

_Empty-handed again._

He promises to have Ray call me this evening, and I hang up the phone, taking a moment to stretch painfully.

I wander around the room a bit idly. I will not leave him alone for a moment, but the unremitting air of _waiting_ has left me on edge. Finally, I sit, picking up the copy of Tobin's Spirit Guide that I have scarcely let out of my sight since we... freed Peter ten days ago. I open it to a page marked by heavy use and a break in the spine, and reread the passage I have long-since memorized.

> The Rakshasi is a demoness of immense power. Mentioned in the sacred texts of the Hindu people since ancient times, she is a monster with the power to seduce and capture Man, clouding his senses and blinding him to his own dissolution. What her male counterpart, the Rakshasa, gains by torture and injury, the Rakshasi gains through bliss. In copulating with her, Man loses his essence to her--his life energy ebbing slowly over the course of as many as six weeks, if the time is needed for the demoness to feed. She extracts his energies and gives nothing in return, and the victim is certain to die in the course of her feeding, for the bliss of Man is a power which a woman cannot duplicate--even one of such power as she.

Blinding him to his own dissolution. He wasn't the only one.

 

"Pete, you been running again?"

Winston's query two weeks ago took my eyes from the journal I'd been studying during breakfast, and I took a long look at Peter, surprised to see that he had indeed lost weight. When had that happened? Still, as he'd started griping about the extra pounds he'd put on over the winter shortly before he met Pranthi, at the time I was thrilled that he would now have one less thing to complain about.

Peter had looked down at himself a little blankly, then flashed a grin. "Pretty good, huh?" Actually, I had thought it was a little on the thin side--and his eyes were shadowed with a persistent fatigue. "Pranthi's a vegetarian, so--"

"Somebody got _you_ to stop eating _meat_?" I had smiled at Raymond's sarcastic exclamation, but now I realize it was just one more clue we had all missed. Men change when they find a partner, but Peter... should not have changed that much.

But we were oblivious, and Peter just smiled. "The things we do for love, huh?"

 

I reach down to brush back that unruly lock of hair... I have been doing that for eighteen years now--even after we ceased to be intimate. It is a game for him, I think--a rakish feature that keeps him young--and keeps him from dwelling on the balding state of his father, no doubt. And I continue to allow him the luxury of having at least one person notice that lock everyday.

The things we do for love, indeed.

I cannot leave him, but I believe if I have to stay in this room for one more minute, I shall go completely mad. Though I suppose I am nearly already there.

Janine isn't due back until dark, at least, and I doubt she will come back any sooner than planned, so I must content myself with pacing the bare confines of the room. Again, I wonder what Peter told her. For all their sparring, they are closer than most brothers and sisters, and he understands her in a way I cannot. Perhaps that is my own discomfort, however--it was... difficult, those first few weeks after Peter did me the favor of taking her aside to explain the situation. I should have done it myself, but... I suppose part of me is a classic gay man--women and their attentions unnerve me. Also, while I care deeply for Janine... she's pushy. I don't even go out with pushy men.

God knows Peter was never that...

 

After that first illuminating night, things proceeded at a surprisingly leisurely pace. I had a friend in high school who told me once, very seriously, that when I fell in love, I would do it hard and fast and permanently. I've always wondered if I should call her someday and tell her she was wrong. Peter and I spent more time together, certainly--and much of it in very non-academic pursuits--but I hesitate to call it a whirlwind romance. We were simply together, and that was enough for both of us.

He still flirted outrageously with every woman he came across, and he still seemed to end up in my bed at night at least as often as he did his own--and certainly to the exclusion of anyone else's. Our activities gave him quite a boost of reputation, in fact. He had been accepted into one of the fraternities, and the fact that he was often out all night simply made him a favored brother.

Never mind the fact that no one could _prove_ he'd slept with any of the many women who claimed to have shared his bed.

We continued our studies in parapsychology, and Peter finally won over Montiori in the strangest way possible. I was home that spring with a vicious flu when Peter dropped by--ostensibly to drop off the day's homework, but more to mother me, as he was wont to do. After handing me the stack of papers he'd brought, he felt my forehead, checked my eyes, and collected the numerous tools of his nursing--cough syrup, a thermometer, a jug of water and another of juice... He can be quite infuriating when he tries to take care of you...

"So..." he began, a smile trying not to break out on his face. "I had a little talk with Raffles after class."

The smile seemed to mean the meeting was a positive one, but with Peter... "What happened?"

"He, um..." Peter's eyes grew unusually timid. "He wants me to help out with a project on psychic phenomena over the summer break."

I puzzled over it for a moment before my fever-muddled brain remembered what day it was. The class was slated to run the symbol cards today--to test for psychic aptitude. "You did well?"

He shrugged--which meant he did incredibly well. Peter has always _seemed_ to have an ego as large as Manhattan, but he only really seems to tout his minor glories. I believe his major accomplishments... scare him.

"Peter?" I grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at me. "The cards? You did well?"

His smile shone out suddenly, tempered with a look that, even after six months together, I could not read, but one that I know now was fear. "Ninety-three range."

My God! The curve on psychic tests is usually enormous, but the cards are... Fewer than one person in ten thousand rates above a 90. "Peter, that's incredible!"

"Yeah, that's me--Wonder Venk!" He tried very hard to worm his way out of the discussion, and, given the fear that I was finally starting to read in his eyes, I let him. "Parlor tricks, Egon," he assured me--and himself. "Hell, Dad could probably ace the damn thing on bluffs alone."

Ah. Charlie Venkman. With the reference to him, Peter's eyes became predictably dark. At the time, I had never had a chance to meet the confidence man--not even at Christmas!--and part of me hoped I never would. He seemed... unworthy of a son who loved him so much. Knowing Charlie as I do now, I cannot say I've changed my opinion of him very much. He is still the same selfish bastard who left his child to comfort his mother when, as usual, Charlie couldn't be bothered to show up for the holidays. Why Peter's mother never bothered to divorce him, I was never sure.

"Anyway," Peter continued, pulling himself from his sad thoughts and pasting on a smile as he dug in his book bag. "Now I get to pull the psychic crap on _you_!" He grinned in a most unpleasant way and produced a deck of reading cards. "I have to get some practice in before Raffles lets me loose on the unsuspecting populace."

We set up for the test, and I ran through it, trying to relax. In truth, I was a bit distracted, and I believe Peter thought so too as he tallied my score.

"Egon, you suck."

I quirked an eyebrow at him. "Thank you, Peter. I'm glad to know what you think of my abilities."

He offered a randy smile. "I think a hell of a lot of your abilities, Spengler," he admitted in a husky voice. "I just don't need the flu right now. Maybe later." His gaze went immediately from lewd to serious. "Honestly, Egon, what's the problem? I'd've expected you to rank a whole lot higher than this." He came around my living room table and sat carefully next to me where I lay on the couch. "What's on your mind?"

"You."

The short reply stopped him for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"Peter..." I had not broached the subject since that first night, but I needed to know. "In October, when I..."

He smiled gently, though shadows were gathering. "When you swept me off my feet and made me a one man man?"

"Peter, please." Honestly. Even then, he could be exasperating. "That night... did you...?"

He slipped his arm around my shoulders, squeezing comfortingly. "I really didn't hear you, Egon." The truth in his eyes was convincing. "I don't know why I scored so high--it's probably as much a fluke as the test you just took. I know you're no mental midget, but those numbers...!" He sighed. "Anyway, at least it got me a job for the summer. Mom could stand to have me not come home smelling like pizza anymore."

I straightened at his talk of going home--even just to Brooklyn. "Peter, I had hoped..." I ducked my head as he turned his full gaze back to me. "I had planned to stay in New York for the summer."

For a moment, he was more still than I had ever seen him. Then he blew out his breath forcefully. "Egon... Do you mean that?" The almost pitiful need in his voice pulled at me. "You want to..." He chuckled. "You want to shack up with me?"

Everything I saw in his eyes made me more certain of the validity of my decision. Peter had spent so much of his life... unwanted. Not through any fault of his own, but through his father's neglect and the world's hard knocks. That he would even question my continued devotion to him was something I was not angered by--at least, not for myself. I was angry that the world had given him such a twisted view--that he might think himself no more than a dalliance to me, even after all this time. I sat up, placing one hand on either side of his face.

"Peter, I do love you. You know that?" He nodded sheepishly. "I mean it, Peter. I want to be with you for as long as you will let me."

"Forever sound good to you?" he asked unsteadily.

I leaned over, kissing him carefully. "Forever sounds wonderful."

And there is still a part of me that wonders why it didn't happen that way. Why we drifted apart without ever leaving each other...

 

Looking down at him now, I cannot help but take his hand, my lips going to his with all the care I showed then.

"It has been forever, Peter. And it will be," I whisper, frowning as he fails to wake and wondering whether he can even feel the strange hum of electricity he seems to give off as my mouth meets his. "I meant it then, as I mean it now."

His lips are too warm. He's feverish again. It seems to come and go, and each time the fever takes more out of him. Placing his limp hand back on the comforter, I turn, dialing Dr. Light's number. He is going to head over as soon as he finishes up with his last patient, and I can only hope that will be soon. He is a very understanding man, our Dr. Light. When we first... realized what was happening... Peter refused to spend more than the first night in the hospital. I know his reasons--though I hardly condone his decision.

He knew--even then, he knew. Before Winston and I accepted the truth of it, before Raymond began to search for his miracle cure, Peter knew he was dying. And it was as if he wanted to spend every moment at home with us.

Our health insurance is incredibly comprehensive. For all Peter complains about our premiums, he has never--even in our leanest times--chanced letting our coverage drop. Given that, it was a simple matter to arrange for home care for him. "Comfort care," they call it. The last step before death. Dr. Light suggested we set up a sick room on the ground floor--the better to get Peter into an ambulance when something finally happens, I think--and the storage room behind his office is a large area, with enough windows to be... Well, hardly homey, but at least not dismal. It was difficult to manage, but we got his four-poster down from the bunkroom, and set up an extra bed as well, so that one of us could be with him at all times.

So that he wouldn't die alone.

Damn her!

My anger flares unexpectedly, and it's all I can do to keep myself from damaging the furniture. Pranthi seemed a nice woman--even a good match for Peter. Fiery and intelligent, she didn't fawn or dote. She was exactly what Peter has always wanted in a companion--his equal in all, never his boss, and certainly never his slave.

Her perfection should have been our first clue. The fact that she never seemed to visit the firehouse should have been our second.

Winston and Ray never met her before the day we brought her down, and I met her only out of happenstance. Peter was running late for a date with her, and I was headed in the same direction. As we often do when Winston is tinkering with Ecto, we took the subway as far as was comfortable, and walked from there.

 

"She's amazing, Egon!"

I smiled at him gently, amused by the almost childlike glee with which he said it. "Yes, Peter, I believe you mentioned that--a number of times."

He stuck his tongue out at me, chuckling at his own infatuation. Even after all these years, sometimes he catches me unaware. Sometimes, I see in him the beautiful man I fell in love with... The beautiful man who somehow went from lover to deepest friend with barely a bump along the way. Why we ever "fell out of love," I don't think I will ever know, but there are times, like that day along Central Park West, when I want him every bit as much as I wanted him then.

All right. If I were being honest, I would say there are few times I do _not_ want him as I wanted him then. And yet, could it really ever compare to what we have now? Honestly?

I have asked myself that question a hundred times in the last seventeen years, and I firmly believe the answer is no. If we could tire of each other so easily--if nine months was all we were ever destined to have together... Was trading that love for this really such a tragedy? Perhaps we were simply destined to be something else... something better than the partners we were then.

But there are so many times when I miss that.

"I know, I'm sappy, but she is!" He turned and walked backward before me--an old game we have played for years: he never stumbles, walking and talking while watching me carefully as my eyes alert him to dangers behind him. It's been a good exercise for busting, too. He's always known I could watch his back--whether that was where I was or not.

This time, I have failed so miserably, I am rather amazed I haven't lost my mind.

"Peter, I'm glad she... interests you so," I said laughingly. "But why have you never brought her around to meet us?"

I should have known then. Looking back, I'm appalled I missed the sudden and swift blankness in his eyes. It cleared almost instantly, and he continued. And I never really noticed. "Come on, Spengs, I want to _impress_ her, not scare her off!"

I stopped in mock astonishment. "Are you saying you're ashamed of us?"

"No," Peter allowed after a moment. "I'm just saying you're all kind of.... weird."

"Normalcy being your native state," I tossed back good-naturedly.

"Who wants normal, Spengs?" he asked, turning to face forward as we neared 96th street. "After all, if Pranthi wanted normal, she could have--"

"Peter!!"

I looked ahead of us toward the tall, dark-haired woman who was waving in our direction.

She was beautiful--beautiful in a way with which I hardly credit most "pretty" women these days. Not too thin, not too much makeup... She was exquisite, and Peter lit up just to see her.

"Pranthi, babe!" He hurried ahead of me, eager to meet her. I remember thinking that that _was_ strange. Peter's cool exterior is a good deal more than skin deep. It's a six-foot-thick wall he's built around himself during thirty-six years of trial and paranoia. That he would be so... excited--in public--struck me as wrong, even then. I followed at a more decorous pace, and the woman in the sky-blue sari walked toward me at his side, smiling indulgently at his enthusiasm.

"Pranthi, I want you to meet one of my fellow Ghostbusters--and my best friend--Egon Spengler. Egon, this is Pranthi Sadis."

I wonder now how I could possibly have been so blind. Her hand was... strange. Not the shape of it, but the feeling of it in my hand--as if it were repulsive in an antipodal sort of way; two negative poles meeting. She seemed to feel it too, as a small frown appeared and disappeared rapidly. At the time, I believe I simply thought she didn't like me. Peter has lost partners who feel he talks too much about his friends and his work, and I just assumed that Pranthi was that type, though she did smile politely and greet me in cultured tones before urging Peter to their scheduled date.

I wonder, was there a blankness there I missed as well, as he left with her the second she suggested it, leaving me a bit nonplussed on the sidewalk behind them? Did I truly fail him that completely?

Should I have been able to save him then and there?

 

"I'm sorry, Peter." Looking down at him now, exhausted and lost.... My God. Could I have saved him? "I'm so sorry."

"You take the last coke again?"

The weak voice takes me by surprise, and I blink, realizing that his eyes have opened while I've been woolgathering. There's a spark still there, but he's weaker every time he awakes...

"Come on, Spengs," he murmurs, patting the bed with all the strength of a newborn. "Talk to me."

"I was considering my meeting with... her."

His eyes roll and he slaps my hand lightly. "You couldn't know, Egon. God, you ever going to listen to me about that?"

I peg him with a stern gaze of my own. "As you have listened to me?"

The truth of my statement gets through--a little. "I know. I know. Supernatural Babe wasn't exactly what I expected when I met her." His eyes fall closed. "I just... It's stupid to get taken like that."

"I'm sorry it had to be you, Peter."

He sighs. "Who the hell was it supposed to be? Some Joe Shmo off the street? Hell, at least we stopped her." He looks up at me candidly. "At least _you_ stopped her."

"We should have seen it sooner." My grating tone causes him to glare at me with concern.

"Oh yeah, Spengs, cause I was _so_ communicative!" He looks down at himself, at the weight he's lost, the almost skeletal hands. "Sure I'm losing weight, guys! New diet--courtesy of the lovely Pranthi! Tired, well hell yeah, after doing the wild thing all night with a she-demon!"

The self-recrimination is bad enough, but he is taxing himself unnecessarily. "Peter--"

"I was so damn caught up in her little spell I'd've let her screw me to death without even noticing she'd done it!"

"Peter, that's enough!" My eyes dart to the heart monitor beside him, watching the indicators flash as his heart rate increases. "You will--"

"I'll what, Egon?" he demands angrily, his voice so soft and strengthless, yet so vicious. "I'll kill myself a little quicker?! What's it matter anyway?"

"Because," I grind out carefully, holding his shoulders and forcing him to look at me. "Because Ray and Winston and Janine..." I am sure my eyes are as painful to look at as they are to look out of. "Peter, at least wait for them."

He deflates instantly, his features crumpling as tears stand in his eyes. He is terrified.

As am I.

"Egon? Peter?"

A rap at the storage room door precedes Dr. Light, and he stands for a moment in the doorway, waiting considerately for Peter to pull himself together.

"Hey, Doc," Peter finally manages, putting on his brave face for the world. Just the sight of it is enough to mist my own eyes. "How you doing?"

The small, precise young man smiles, heading for the bed, where I make way for him. "Got a little tennis elbow, how 'bout you?"

Peter relaxes at the gentle banter, and his smile slides into something more genuine. "Not bad, but it hurts when I do this." What he does is... predictably Peter.

Dr. Light ignores the offensive finger thrust at him. "I can take care of that, Pete--got a scalpel here. We'll just cut the whole thing right off, okay?"

Peter chuckles weakly, and the tears are gone from his eyes as he looks up at me. "Hey, Spengs, you eaten today?"

"No. I don't believe--" Damn. I should pay more attention.

He smirks at having caught me out. "Didn't think so. Go upstairs and grab something, okay?"

The plea in his eyes decides me far more than any bodily need does. I leave quietly, not bothering to offer him something. Peter has been beyond food for three days now--what nourishment his body will take is administered through the IV in his hand. That sobering thought makes the walk up the stairs more arduous than ever before--even that climb the first day we found out...

I won't cry--not now. Peter... Peter still needs me, and I can still help--somehow--

I give up, letting the tears fall as I collapse into a chair in the kitchen.

Oh God... Peter, God... Someone...

Please help us.

* * * 


	2. Chapter 2

I know it's a dream when I enter the bunkroom, but the fact hardly helps me.

Peter had been growing ill for days... apparently weeks... and when finally confronted with the evidence of his decline, I almost refused to believe it.

We had had a difficult bust that morning, and Peter had been slimed a good deal more than even he is used to dealing with. While Ray and I handled the traps and packs, and Winston set about making an edible lunch, Peter called the shower and walked slowly up the stairs. At the time, I remember thinking he looked a little worn out--perhaps splitting his time between Pranthi and the firehouse was getting to be too much for him. I was so glad he'd finally found another person to love... especially after Tom. His last long-term relationship was with a corporate lawyer, a man who enjoyed all the things Peter enjoyed, but who, in the end, wanted more commitment than Peter was willing to give. The breakup had hit him harder than most, and he and I had spent a number of nights in the kitchen sipping cocoa as he puzzled out his feelings.

Was he overcompensating now, I wondered? Was he trying to be all things to all people in the hopes that this time, he could have enough commitment for everyone? I meant to find out, and there my current nightmare--the one I sleep and wake with--begins...

 

Dropping the traps with Ray, I head upstairs with two of the packs, for recharging; past the kitchen where Winston is fixing lunch, and up to the bunkroom, where Peter is just getting ready after his shower. The sight of his back--the long, narrow, almost singed claw marks, the skeletal hang of his skin over protruding ribs... Even in this dream--even after I have known the reality and lived with it for days--even now, I feel the initial disbelief I had then. I passed it off, at least for a moment. Passed it all off: the scars, the wasting, the fact that a man who had never been shy about his own state of undress around us had taken to changing in the bathroom with the door shut...

"Perhaps you should ask Pranthi to clip her claws occasionally, Peter." I use the word claws--it's not an idiom, not really. Somehow, days later, I am still trying to process what happened.

Peter turns swiftly, a blank look on his face for a long moment as he mechanically pulls a sweater over himself, covering up the evidence. As if programmed--which of course, he was--Peter finishes his task and slips easily back into his happy-going persona. In the dream, the gauntness of his face and the pallor of his skin are amplified, making him look less a man and more a ghost.

"She's a wild cat, all right, Spengs," he agrees, the nightmare changing slightly as he advances on me. These words and images are new. "Having sex with her was like flying, my friend." His hand reaches out, skeletal digits raking roughly over my skin in a tender caress. "Kind of like having sex with you."

 

The searing kiss he delivers, full of fire and electricity, launches me out of my bed, and I fumble for my glasses. 2:00 a.m. It's time to send Janine home.

As I change back into my sweats, my mind continues the real story--unhindered by the strange aberration at the end of the dream.

 

The very fact that Peter did not see a problem, even when thrust in front of a mirror to confront the ravages visited on him, set off every warning bell. PKE readings showed a trace of demonic essence so small, we'd never have noticed with all the background noise. Of course, it was still nearly more powerful than Peter's own biorhythms, which were dangerously low--so low we were all surprised he was on his feet at all.

The rest is far too much action for not enough result. Ray hunted through the literature while Winston and I spent time examining Peter--Winston from a medical standpoint, and I from the paranormal spectrum. What medical knowledge Winston had, he applied, commenting that the wounds on Peter's back seemed to be healing quickly, though the scar patterns indicated that she had been routinely reinjuring the same sites. He was severely dehydrated, though I had seen him drinking juice and water as often as he ever does. In all, his state of physical decline was... disturbing.

But not nearly so much as the fact that he was acting as near normal as he was capable of. He moved stiffly occasionally, though he evinced no pain, and he ate much less than normal, though he always seemed to have a reason for it. He truly did not see the precarious state of his health. It was as if Pranthi had removed the part of his mind capable of seeing himself clearly, and he sat on the bed, stripped to the waist, and wondered loudly what was so damn fascinating for the rest of us.

In fact, so oblivious was he that after we'd been puzzling it out for nearly three hours, Peter calmly rose from his bed, gathering up his clothes and starting to head for the bathroom.

Winston intercepted him swiftly. "Where do you think you're headed?"

"Got date with an angel, Zed." Peter's pleasant, open grin was a mockery, now we'd seen the rest of him. How she managed to keep his  _face_  from looking more than slightly thinner, I do not know, but with his clothes on, he had looked almost normal.

Except that there was always that strange blankness overlaying his eyes...

The PKE meter had begun to scream in my hand, as Winston took up an implacable position in front of the bunkroom door.

"You're not leaving, Pete," he announced quietly. "Just sit down till we figure this out."

Peter's face went blank for a longer moment this time, as if his clouded mind were calling back to its master for further orders. And judging by the intensified readings I was receiving, that appeared to be exactly the case. Storm clouds gathered in his eyes, and he glared at Winston coldly, just short of murderous.

"Get out of my way," Peter growled, low and dangerous, though I doubt he would have had the strength to stand up to Winston had he needed to. "I'm going to see my girlfriend, and you can't stop me."

"A three-year-old could stop you." Winston's voice dropped effortlessly to that soft, reassuring tone that has talked each and every one of us off the proverbial ledge more than once. "Come on, Pete, you're losing it, man. Let us help you." His hand went out to touch Peter's shoulder, and Winston flinched back, as if repulsed.

"She doesn't like us playing with her toys, Egon," Winston whispered to me, shaking his hand vigorously to dispel whatever pain the contact caused.

I reached out myself, holding on to Peter's arm for a moment. There was a sensation--a mild, almost electrical charge, stronger than the one he now gives off to me. It was strange, but not completely off-putting.

Peter backed away with a smile, pulling out of my grasp, his hands coming up in a conciliatory gesture. His expression was so  _normal_  that the effect was even more unreal.

"Come on guys," he cajoled in his perfectly reasonable, slightly surprised tone. "Hey, I know Egon goes crazy with his little experiments, Zed, but I never thought I'd see you acting this weird." He gathered up his clothes again, still that death's head grin on his face. "Tell you what: I'll just pop over to Pranthi's for a few, and I'll be back in an hour. You can poke and prod me all you want then, Spengs. Okay?"

"No, Peter," I grated, trying to still the well of panic that had begun churning in the pit of my stomach. "It is not okay. Please just sit down, and--"

"Egon, I think I found it!" Raymond's entrance snapped Peter's head around, but he still had that blank, affable look about him. If the meter in my hand had not refuted the claim, I might have claimed he was possessed.

"It's a rakshasi, Egon--I think." The enthusiasm that normally infused Ray's tone at encountering a new and different entity was missing, replaced by a tense, worried timbre completely unlike him. "It's Hindu, originally," he supplied, his large eyes darting worriedly toward Peter, whose bare chest was almost horrible in its wastedness. "It's a" His blush was understandable--and completely unnecessary. I knew the name.

"A sexual vampire," I finished for him, turning once again to Peter, who had been trying, unsuccessfully, to inch past the immovable object that was Winston Zeddemore.

"A what?" Winston was watching Peter closely, but his puzzled query was a plea for me alone.

"Essentially, Pranthi is akin to a succubus. Feeding off of men during sex." I am amazed, looking back with preternatural clarity on that day, that I was able to achieve such a bland, clinical tone. Inside, I felt I'd just signed Peter's death warrant. A rakshasi was something more than a simple succubus, feeding off of men at the time of climax and moving on. She was a sexual predator, intent on wringing every last drop of energy from her victim.

And her victim in this case happened to be the man about whom I care above all others.

"Oh, man"

Winston's shocked exclamation said it all, for each of us. I turned back to Ray, trusting Winston to keep Peter in his place. That he seemed not to understand what we were talking about in the least told me the extent of Pranthi's hold on him.

"What can we do about the problem?" I asked Ray tightly, a vengeful tone creeping into my voice. "Aside from the obvious." This demoness was going into containment--whether I survived the process or not.

"I don't--I don't think there's" he trailed off, his tortured eyes raking over Peter's equally tortured form in pain. "I don't think there's anything we can do" His tone firmed, matching mine for ire. "Except fry her."

Fry her. Capture the demoness and hope that, free of her influence, Peter might be saved.

"Come on, Zed, give me a break," Peter wheedled carefully, inching again toward the door, now blocked by both Winston and Ray. "Spengs and Ray are pretty clueless, but  _you_  know what it's like." He advanced another step. "Just give me an hour, and I'll come back and play guinea pig."

Ray's confused look wrenched away from Peter and fixed on me. "Egon...?"

"It appears her influence is rather extensive," I replied in a whisper. The meter in my hand chose that moment to kick into overload. Winston, his stance already implacable, straightened further.

"She's coming for him, isn't she?" he demanded angrily, gesturing Ray to retrieve our packs from the lab.

I shut off the meter shortly before it could blow itself to pieces, and nodded grimly. "It appears so."

Unlike the polite woman I had met at Central Park West, Pranthi didn't bother to knock.

She appeared with a blast of heat, wrapping the room in an almost suffocating blanket of I can only describe it as  _need_. She needed Peter desperately.

And we would rather die than let her have him.

 

"Egon?"

Janine's quiet call shakes me from my thoughts, and I find myself wondering how long I've been standing in this doorway, blank eyes staring at the tableau before me. She is patently exhausted, her eyes red from something more than simple tears. The last eight days have been torture for us all, but I believe Janine and Winston have had the worst of it, trying desperately to keep Raymond and me from coming apart completely. Their attempts are deeply appreciated, but I fear nothing will prevent our own dissolutions when the unthinkable finally happens.

"You should go home and get some rest, Janine," I tell her softly, taking her in my arms as she rises to meet me. She has been sitting with him for hours, while I tried to get what little rest is afforded me these days. That I don't sleep easily is no surprise--none of us are well, and none of us will ever feel better.

"I can stay, if you need me to," she offers softly, tightening her grip a moment before she backs off to examine me. "You look like hell."

"So, it's a universal condition then, huh?"

Peter's amused tone does nothing to soften the pain in his eyes, and the guilt that I see there as well is even more painful.

"Watch it, Venkman," Janine quips gently, turning to face him. "I can still wring that raise out of you, you know?"

The attempt at normalcy is damaging for her, but Janine is the type that has to try. She has rarely given Peter any quarter, allowing him a faint hint of the past in our dismal present. And at this moment, I believe I love her more than I ever have before.

"Not a chance, Melnitz," he throws back with a genuine grin. "I'm not  _that_  far gone."

Her eyes darken in horror, and she heads back to the bed, sitting on the edge as she takes Peter's hand in hers. She feels the same electricity in his touch that I do, I have discovered, though not as strongly as I seem to. Perhaps it is our closeness to him, our love, that allows us to feel that connection.

"Peter..."

He smiles gently at her, raising a tired hand to touch her face. "Go home, Melnitz. Get some rest." His voice drops to a further whisper, and I see the tears standing in his eyes. "I'll still be here when you get back."

She takes a moment before she nods, kissing him gently on the forehead before gathering her things. I am graced with a kiss on the cheek as she grips my hand fiercely. "There's leftover pizza in the minifridge, Egon," she tells me, heading for the door. "Eat something."

I stare at the appliance in question, and my heart constricts for a moment. I never realized it when we set up the room, but that is the same refrigerator Peter had when I met him in college. Raymond has always kept it working somehow.

It appears we've come full circle, Peter and I. Back to a glorified dorm room, but without the bright future we both found in the original.

"I'm sorry, Spengs." His voice is rough now, whether from exhaustion or unshed tears, I am not certain. "You should have been able to get a little more sleep."

"I'm all right," I lie, seeing in his smile that I am likely to be unable to  _ever_  get him to believe one of my prevarications. I grip his hand as I take a seat, hearing the outer door open as Janine's car starts up. "Thank you for talking to her," I say quietly, watching his eyes droop. "I don't think I could have convinced her to go, and she needs rest as much as I do."

Peter nods minutely, his lips curling in a faint smile. "Just another judicious application of the Venkman magic," he supplies, before his breathing evens out into another period of slumber that comes nearer to unconsciousness every time.

Venkman magic, I muse, my fingers on his wrist confirming his continued existence more tangibly than the still-beeping heart monitor. The magic that made us all love him in the first place. The magic that made Ray and Winston and Janine and I band together with him as a family...

A family who would die to protect their own.

 

And Raymond very nearly did.

Winston moved to stand between Peter and the demoness, and I hurried to his side, we two presenting a united front, blocking her from him while he tried to edge around us.

"You keep me from my prize, Egon Spengler," she murmured, a mix of allure and vicious anger in her tone. "Stand aside. He is mine."

"Like hell he is, lady." Winston's own tone was beyond furious, and, even unarmed, he made a formidable figure. "He's ours, and we're taking him back."

Her eyes raked him coldly before a sudden smile stole over her features. Hovering as she did, her sari waving in the supernatural breeze, she looked more beautiful than she had the day I met her--and considerably more horrible.

"You are a fine one, as well," she whispered, the ire modulating into something more seductive. "Perhaps, when I am finished with him--"

Her proposition was cut off cleanly by the lash of protons that slammed her into the doorjamb. With a groan for the effort, Raymond's beam held her for a moment as he slid two packs around her toward us.

"You're not going to  _get_  to finish with him, Pranthi," Ray announced, his voice colder than I had ever heard it. "Give him back!"

She wriggled free of the stream, turning on him as he distracted her long enough for Winston and I to don our packs. Peter tried to take the advantage and head toward her, but Winston snaked out one arm, shoving him violently to the bed. "Stay put, Pete," he grated, unsheathing his thrower. "We got work to do."

Pranthi's anger was a living thing, but her baleful glare did not even make Ray flinch. He stood, defiant, his beam lashing out at her again, pinning her roughly as my own joined it.

"You cannot stop me, mortal," she shrieked, raising a hand toward Ray. The beam that shot from her was more electric than ectoplasmic, and it hit him with all the force of a runaway train. With a cry of his own, Raymond slammed back into the wall outside the bunkroom, and collapsed.

"That's it, lady!" Winston's beam took up where Ray's had cut off, and we held her coldly as he reached behind him for his trap--

To find it gone. Peter held it, backing away from us in anger.

"Leave her alone, damnit!" he yelled, dropping the trap and launching himself toward me. "What did she ever do to you!?"

 _Took you from me._  The thought rolled through my brain as I fought him off, trying desperately to hold the rakshasi in my beam. I couldn't throw him from me--not in his current condition. And Winston couldn't come to my aid and hope to help keep her contained...

I held him off as best I could, suddenly despairing of ever trapping her--ever freeing him from her power... And Ray... Was he dead already? Would I lose them both? Panic began to grip me, tightening its hold on my heart, until I heard two words that loosed a prayerful sigh from my lips.

"Trap out!"

Ray's trap slid neatly across the hallway floor, landing smartly below her and sending a blessed cone of light up to capture her more fully.

"No! NO!! He is mine! You cannot stop me!"

"Stuff it, lady!" Winston gritted back, his stream wavering slightly as he headed toward me. I continued to hold Peter at bay with difficulty, but it soon became an unnecessary exercise. As Pranthi began to elongate, her shrieks of anger mutating to cries of pain, he screamed as well and fell back in weakness, letting loose a soul-rending moan that raised every hair on my body.

"You will not get him back!" she vowed, well and truly trapped now, as Raymond's stream added itself back into the equation. "He is mine! You cannot have him!"

With one final, ear-splitting scream--a mixture of her anger and Peter's agony--she slid violently into the trap...

And Peter dropped like a stone.

And the purgatory that is now my life began in earnest.

* * *

I hang up the phone, tears threatening as I wish Raymond a safe journey on their flight. I believe he is finally coming to understand the futility of hope, and the pain in his voice was appalling. His friend has come up with nothing--a small mention of a ritual involving the imbibing of bodily fluids. It sounds like something Peter would hate, something he would complain about endlessly. And it is useless, calling as it does for the blood of an Indian Princess, a Tear of Kali, and a Rakshasi's bile. The bile we could get, if I sent Slimer into the unit for that bitch--even the princess might be possible (it isn't the lifeblood, after all), though maybe not in time... As to the tear... Well, I'm not sure I wouldn't welcome a god of any kind right now, but they all seem to be in short supply.

I sit on the edge of the bed and taking his cold hand in mine, feeling the slight tingle of the demon energy that has wasted his body. I pick up the meter that has never left my side, and turn it on. The energy is still there, still draining him. And he has always been far too weak for us to risk trying to pull it out of him...

If we had only been quicker to see the problem... Oh God...

"Not that you ever believed in gods anyway," I whisper, a laugh of sheer desperation in my tone.

"Nope, too damn much trouble, you know?"

His voice is weaker now, but very, very clear, as if it is the last thing he has left; the one thing he can concentrate his strength on. I put the meter aside, centering my attention on him as it beeps quietly to itself.

"Peter... I didn't think you'd wake. I didn't mean to--"

"Figured I could still sleep through anything, huh, Spengs?" His voice holds more than it has in the last day--more feeling, more despair, more fear... more sorrow... "I don't want to sleep through the rest of this."

The rest of this. The rest of his life.

"I'm sorry, Egon."

His heartfelt apology is so  _unnecessary_! "Peter, I have told you before--"

"Not for... not for this, Egon... For the summer."

Our first summer... "Funny, I was just..." I look down at him sharply. "Peter can you--"

"I'm  _not_   _psychic_ , Egon, Jesus!" His glare softens to a smile, and he squeezes my hand with what little strength he has left. "Come on, I know you... You're reviewing 'Life with the Great Venkman.' It's a normal process of grieving, Egon." His eyes close and he chuckles faintly. "I am a psychologist, you know?"

"You rarely let me forget it."

He takes a shallow breath, blows it out in a sigh. "I shouldn't have let it end like that."

His admission puzzles me. "Let it end like what?" I lean closer, watching him open his eyes to watch me. "Peter, I have always thought that, as much as I might sometimes miss what we had... What we have now more than makes up for it."

"That's bullshit, Egon--least I hope it is. I  _always_  missed what we had. If I had just been a little less screwed up... This and a whole lot of other things wouldn't have happened." He grins in an almost physical pain, and the strange tingle about him increases slightly. "I still love you, Egon--just the way I used to."

I sigh deeply. I do not wish to hurt him--not now, not when he is so close to--

But I have lived my life since he and I broke up, years ago. I have taken lovers, and even been more than serious about a few of them. I know he, too, has found people he hoped would be permanent fixtures in his life. I have always loved him, but...

No. No lies now... for once... For once, I allow myself to realize that I do still love him--am still  _in_ love with him. It isn't just when he wears a tuxedo, or gets hopelessly caught up in some obscure semantic argument, or emerges dripping and grinning from the shower after a hard bust... It's always. It's permanent. Suddenly, I feel an edge to the air... Something...

"So why..." No, it was never about blame. It was a choice we both made. "What happened?"

"Mom." I cock my eyebrow, and he sighs. "Remember the endless hours I spent at the hospital that summer?"

Vividly. His mother's first battle with the cancer that claimed her three years later. Peter was terrified for her, and spent the majority of his summer in the hospital at her bedside, often sleeping on the floor or on a chair in her room. His project with Montiori was abandoned, and, for a time, our relationship was effectively put on hold.

"I never told her, you know? About us."

The confession is so totally unexpected that I stare for a long moment. "Peter, I believe she would have understood--"

He shakes his head. "Doesn't matter, Egon. I never told her. I stayed there with her, and told her about how your project was going, and what the new apartment was like... And I was so damn grateful every time you walked in that door to visit her." The guilt in his eyes is terrible, though that last sentiment warms me. "And I still never told her."

"Peter, I hardly think you could feel guilty for wanting to spare her more stress during such a difficult time--"

"Can it, Spengs. I've already had fifteen years to deal with that mistake." He stares at me, into me, willing me to understand.  _I have to say this,_  his eyes seem to plead.  _Before it's too late._  "And it's not the one we're talking about here, anyway."

I nod, having little else to do, and squeeze his hand carefully, noting the increase of pain in the lines of his face. "What does this... revelation... have to do with what happened that summer, Peter--to us?"

Gathering his strength, he looks past me, trying to see what happened, I suppose. "Somewhere in there--somewhere between the chemo and the apartment, between her and you... I realized that I was just like Charlie."

"You could not then--or ever--be just like your father in any respect, Peter!" This anger is always raw for me, always painful. Perhaps moreso now, when I have been unable to even find that bastard so that his son can have one last chance to say goodbye.

"Just listen for a minute, Egon, okay?" His grin is tender, and far more patient than he ever used to seem to manage. "I'm a psychologist, remember? We're long-winded by nature."

"Well, at the very least you like to hear yourselves talk." A frantic corner of my mind wonders suddenly whether we will be bantering like this at the moment of his death.

"Sure, kick a guy when he's down, Spengs." He rests a moment before continuing. "Egon... I really _was_  just like Charlie--like the way he was with my mom. ...He was hers when it was convenient. Whenever it didn't conflict with his schedule, or get in the way of his latest scam." His eyes lock on my own, and there are tears again... "Whenever it wouldn't mess up my scholarship, or screw with my standing in the frat."

"Peter, it hardly mattered to me--"

"It mattered to  _me_ , Egon, don't you get it?!" He uses what little energy he still possesses to pull me toward him, panting harshly with the exertion. "I... was so damn... scared of... what everybody else would think that... I didn't..."

"Shhhh..." I reach up gently, running a hand through his hair as he cries. I can't say what he's crying for after a few moments... His loss, ours, mine... I suppose it hardly matters now. What matters is keeping him here for as long as I can. "Peter, it's all right... I accept your apology."

"I wish  _I_  did," he whispers, all but spent again. "God I wish I had just..."

"Peter, please." He is growing weaker by the moment, this emotional display exhausting him far more than his weakened body can handle.

His eyes meet mine desperately. "I love you, Egon. I always loved you." He looks away in pain, and I feel my own heart breaking. "But after a while... You had John--your senior year, remember?" I do remember John... He was... He was nothing like Peter. "And I met Melissa, and..." He smiles gently. "We were happy, Spengs. And we were still together, you and I..." His whisper almost dies, and I lean in closer to hear him. "I didn't want to risk that you wouldn't... make the same mistake twice."

"And love you all over again?" I murmur back. At his nod, I cannot bear to be apart from him any longer, and I gather him carefully to me, feeling the electricity build as we come in closer contact. It has been growing stronger all night, and I fear... I fear perhaps it will overcome his spirit altogether very soon. "Peter, I'd make that mistake again in a minute." I tighten my hold, feeling the now-angular jutting of ribs through his pajama top as the electricity again increases. Don't do this, Peter... Not now... "I never really gave up on it in the first place."

His sigh is more relaxed, as if simply being here in my arms is giving him far more comfort than any of the other things we have tried for him. I... will miss him so... I don't know if I can understand now just how empty it will really be without him.

"I love you, Peter," I whisper, the scent of his hair bringing back memories of what we shared, so many years ago. Janine must have washed it while I slept last night. It smells clean and soft and warm... I shift slightly, as the power between us builds. "Don't go. Not yet."

"I don't want to, Egon. God... I don't want to leave you guys." His voice is stronger, subtly more aware... "I never wanted to leave you, but..."

"It's in the past, Peter. I forgive you." And I do. What happened that summer, the choices we both made... They never changed anything. Not really. We are still together, and we have lived our lives at one another's sides, through all the trials the world has thrown at us. Unbidden, a memory comes to me, and I find myself laughing--truly laughing--for the first time in more than a week.

"What's so funny, Spengs?" Definitely stronger. Unfortunately, I cannot tell if it is the last-minute strength of a dying man, or simply a short period of regrouping. God, please... Don't let him die before we're all here, together. Don't let him die with only me to comfort him.

Don't let him die.

"Do you remember Valentine's Day?"

His chuckle heartens me, though it is too shot through with tears. "I said I was sorry!"

"At the time, it hardly helped."

 

I had been looking forward to Valentine's Day that year. I had been between relationships the year before, and Peter was... Well, I had wanted to do something special for him. I was and am a horrible cook--by my own admission--but I am extremely adept at dialing a telephone. He was scheduled to get off shift at the pizzeria at seven. I had dinner on the table by seven-thirty.

It was nine before the phone finally rang.

"Peter?" I expect there was a good deal more anger in my voice than there should have been--especially considering the voice on the other end of the line.

"Is this Egon Spengler?" A high, female voice, with sounds of industry behind it.

"Yes. Speaking."

"Mr. Spengler, this is Anita Converse at Columbia Hospital." I remember quite clearly the visceral ache that went through me at her introduction. "I'm calling on behalf of Peter Venkman?"

"Is he all right?" That I managed to choke out the question rather surprised me.

Her tone turned reassuring, and I breathed again. "He's a little worse for wear. There was a minor pedestrian accident, but he's all right." Accident? "He asked us to call you. Could you come and pick him up?"

I drove a good deal faster than the law allowed, and fetched up outside the emergency room, abandoning my car in what I believe was a fire zone.

At least, that was what the police told me when they impounded my car.

Peter had been clipped by a passing taxi on his way to pick up a last-minute present for me, and had broken his arm. Other than that, he was undamaged--until I got my hands on him.

"Of all the stupid things to do, Peter--"

"Hey!" He had broken in, hurt. "Not like I  _meant_  to get smushed by a cab!" He exited the less dangerous taxi I had summoned to take us back to my apartment, stumbling slightly with the power of the painkillers they gave him. "Anyway, I was buying a present for  _you_."

"I would prefer you, whole and undamaged, to any bauble you might waste your money on, Peter." I was still quite frightened by the whole experience, and my fear transmuted to a predictable anger. I saw him safely to the bed, stretching him out and tucking the covers up over him before either of us spoke again.

"I'm sorry I ruined our dinner, Spengler." The almost pitiable tone was enough to make me sigh and take a seat on the edge of the mattress. "I just wanted tonight to be... I don't know--special."

 

The grin my mouth forms now is as rueful as the one I gave him then. "Well it was definitely a memorable ocassion." A whisper, as I feel his arms worm around me more securely.

"I do what I can," he tosses off weakly. I'm terrified. I'm terrified he won't last until noon when the guys get back--he won't make it to say goodbye. I'm terrified he'll break his promise to Janine and to Ray, and that I'll finally find an end to this purgatory and land in hell. The electricity between us is almost unbearable, but I'll be damned if I let him go now--in any way. He squeezes me with the strength of a dying man, and I nearly come apart. "Do you remember when I got the cast off?"

Unrestrained lust flows through me at the memory of that day spent in "physical therapy." The flush of desire all but overwhelms me suddenly. My God, what brought this on?

Peter's moan--as full of desire as my own thoughts--brings me back to myself, though the feeling does not abate in the slightest.

"God, Spengs... I loved that..." He draws a deep breath, the warm feel of it against my skin causing a shiver that heads distressingly toward my groin. "Just the... the feel of you..."

I don't understand this! I... I know logically that I am likely to respond... atypically... to his demise, but this? I breathe slowly, trying to control a body that seems to be obeying the power that grows from the man in my arms...

_The bliss of Man is a power which a woman cannot duplicate._

No. No, that cannot be the answer. Even if it were...

"I can't believe I left this," he whispers, his voice taking on an almost rapturous quality. "I can't believe..." He squirms against me, turning to place a light kiss on my shoulder. The shock that runs through me is...

No. I turn slightly, tipping his head up so that I can see his face.

"Peter?"

"Yeah, Spengs?" His voice is almost languorous, his half-lidded eyes speaking of the comfort he is deriving from my touch. Comfort and something more... No. I have finally lost it. It's been coming for days now, and I've finally lost what precious hold I still had on reality.

_The bliss of man..._

I tighten my hold on him again, his forehead coming to rest against my breastbone. A forehead that is too cold now... As cold as death...

"Damn, it's so cold in here," he whispers, a need in his voice that shocks me more than my own body's reactions. "And you are the  _only_  thing giving off warmth."

He used to call me a hot water bottle, I remember. Such a problem with cold...

"You feel good, Egon... You feel  _right_. So much better than..." His sigh of contentment carries something more. My God! I cannot--I  _will not_  believe that this is the answer! He is too weak, too far gone... A bodily reaction to his proximity, that's all this is... A bodily reaction...

He snuggles into me for a moment more, then turns his head, rearing back to look me full in the face. And the lust in his eyes almost destroys me. "Egon, I want..."

What he wants, suddenly, he takes.

As in my dream last night, his mouth takes mine with a shock of energy that nearly pushes me over the edge. The edge of sanity, the edge of ecstasy...

"Peter, I don't think--I can't--"

"Then don't," he all but begs, his lips searing my own again. I can feel my control slipping. But I can't do this! He is so weak, and--

And yet with a strength that moments ago I'd swear he didn't have, Peter turns me bodily, dropping me to the bed with as much playful energy as he ever had when we were young... He reaches toward his right hand, slowing pulling out the IV to toss it carelessly to the floor, his eyes still on my own. I must stop this!

His hands take hold of my sweatshirt, pulling it gently up to expose my chest, and the lips that fasten on my skin, the teeth that mar it with brutal ecstasy, take what little control I have from me. Desire wells and I know, no matter the reason, that I  _need_  this--as much as he does.

This is different--this is right! Suddenly, this is beyond both of us. It's something primal in Peter, something desperate in us both. He  _needs_  to be complete again...

And I am on fire with the need to complete him.

He strips us both as I lay here, consumed by his need. I can hear the logic in the corner of my mind, a logic that begs restraint, that demands I stop this. But there can't be an end now--there can't be anything but him. Just Peter. Just the thin hands that tear at my pants, the teeth that mark my chest, the energy that shoots through me at his touch. It is possession in the strictest sense--I am everything that he is. There is no room for my logic, only his lust.

Peter's tongue laps fiercely at me; across my chest, down the curve of my stomach. My hands grasp his head, running desperately through his hair. So soft, so perfect... Like spring... I can feel my body begging for him as the curve of his shoulder slides against my erection, and the cry I give out is pure desire.

The cry I utter moments later is despair, as he rears up, away from me. Too far away, too far--

"Peter...?"

"I  _need_  that, Egon." His whisper with its shade of hopelessness almost brings me back, and I look down to see terror in his eyes.

He's afraid of this... He can't control it and he's afraid I'll...

"I'm here, Peter," I whisper, pulling him up to kiss me, trying to be tender in the face of the desire that envelops us both. "I'll always be here."

Tears meet my matter of fact admission, and I brush them away with a gentle hand. We need...

"NO!!" Peter grabs for me as I rise, screaming his denial. But I'm not leaving. Oh God, Peter, I couldn't leave you for a moment now. Not now. Not ever.

"We need--" I grab a tube that was left when they set up the equipment. Lubricant for the oxygen tube we never needed to install...

Relief spreads quickly over Peter's features and his hands don't relinquish their hold on me until I am back in his arms.

There is still that corner of my mind that rings with screams of denial. But it's a small part. So useless, so insignificant, so worthless. That logic couldn't save him--it couldn't save  _us_! Only him, only his desire, only his need...

I reach out and lay him down; take his shoulders to roll him over.

"NO!" His rejection sends a stab of pain through me. Not no, not now. I'm close... I  _need_! The shrill sound of a meter, screaming to itself as my mind does, fills the room, repelled by this, by us...

"Peter--" the heart monitor joins in the protest, but I can't care. Leads dangling, half torn off by our power... Machines. Useless, hopeless...

I  _NEED_!

"I need to see you, Egon." His plea is desperate, the tears standing again in his eyes an entreaty I cannot deny. "I need to see you."

I nod, arranging him, preparing him... I am shaking with the power as I finally rest at his opening. So close...

Oh God! I'd forgotten...

Peter likes to be fucked. He loves it. I remember the feel of him, the rhythms. The memories so far away and so very close that I can feel exactly what he wants. Words from twenty years ago ring in my ears, spoken right here, right now...

"Oh, God, yes, Egon... Oh God, you feel good!"

And it does. Oh God, it feels so good. Such a tight heat, so perfect... I remember...

Slow, rocking, gentle as I slip in... Careful, and oh, so very slow...

"Egon... Oh, Jesus, Egon,  _please_!"

Harder now--not too hard... That look. Oh God, that look I'd almost forgotten. So full of lust and hunger and--

"Egon! Killing me! Please!"

Harder. Hard enough to hurt. Fast and hard and-- I hit the spot--Peter's spot. The spot I hope no one else has ever hit as well as I. The scream Peter lets out at the contact is music, mingling with the desperate pounding in my own chest, the throbbing of my own blood in my veins. The sounds of meter and monitor are fading now, crushed by the simple, wonderful rhythm of  _us_. Together. Heat and power and lust and love and--

"No!" I grab his hand away from his own hard cock, grab his other, using them to ride him harder, faster, pounding and pounding as Peter yells his own frustration. "No! Just..." Just fill... Fill him, complete him. All of it for Peter, in Peter. All of it--

Our screams blend with the shrilling of equipment nearly forgotten as I drive into him a finally time. Oh God, Oh Peter! I can't--I can't...

And suddenly....

I'm flying.

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 3

Torn between them, I let Winston wave me toward Raymond, and I run to the hall.

"Egon, what about Peter?"

"Don't try to move, Ray," I whisper, waiting desperately for Winston to tell us _something_. "You may have hurt your--"

"I've got a pulse, guys! He's breathing!"

Raymond sags back into the floor, gasping in pain. I didn't see him hit--I don't know how hard--

"Shit! Egon, get in here!"

My entrails ice, I run back, dropping hard to my knees beside them. As we watch, whatever power held Peter's face and hands unmarred by the rakshasi's attack drains off, leaving him... cadaverous. I capture the hand Winston has not grabbed, feeling desperately for Peter's pulse, though I can clearly hear his rasping breath.

"Winston...?"

The gaze he shares with me is hopeless, and he tucks Peter's hand gently at his motionless side, rising quickly. "I'll call an ambulance. How's Ray--"

"I've got it, Winston."

We turn as one to see Ray, unsteady on his feet, weave toward his bed, falling onto it before grabbing for the phone and dialing.

"Ray, buddy, come on, lie down." Ever the caretaker, Winston takes his shoulders carefully, urging him down into a supine position, even as Ray entreats the paramedics to hurry.

Peter is still breathing... still breathing... I cannot let go of his wrist--even as the EMTs appear at my side and begin their work on him. If I let go, he'll die. Irrational, illogical, but I cannot help the conviction I have.

"Egon, let him go." Winston's request is useless. I could not let him go before, and I will never do so now.

"Egon, please... Let them help him." Ray's pain-laced tones finally get through, and I turn to him, taking in the careful pose he's taken up, kneeling at my side. I help him gain his feet, pushing him down on the edge of Peter's bed.

"You'll need them, too, Raymond," I remind him gently. But predictably, he simply shakes his head.

"They can check me out when we get to the hospital," he allows, a faint tear working its way down his cheek. "Let them take care of Peter now."

The trip to St. Vincent's is silent and nerve-wracking, broken only by the occasional, involuntary groan as Ray's battered body reacts to Ecto's movements. I clutch a meter in my hand, tuned to Peter's waning biorhythms, begging them silently to stay... Begging him to stay...

"Looks like we've got endstage. I don't see any lesions, but safety, people!"

The doctor's voice is harsh, but competent. Winston and I crowd into a small corner of the examination room--Raymond was taken from us when we entered.

"Do you know if he's been on the protocol?"

Protocol? The nurse is addressing me, but...

Winston sighs deeply. "It's not AIDS," he tells her calmly. "It's--"

The meter in my hand falls silent as the heart monitor behind Peter's head begins to shrill.

No... God, no. Peter...

"Peter, don't..."

"Spengs?" His ghostly query closes my eyes. I can't bear to see him like...

"Please, Peter..."

"Okay, let's call it..." Don't... "Time of death--"

"Egon?"

"NO!!!"

 

"EGON!"

Thin, rough hands shake me, and I open my eyes to see him, wasted and cold... Oh Peter, how could you...? The shrilling ceases as they turn off the monitor.

"Egon, please. Wake up!"

He shakes me once more, his hands almost firm and almost real on my arms... Almost real...

No! No, not _almost_! REAL! I shake my head weakly, looking at him as the fog clears from my mind, the memory of a week ago fading in the force of more recent ones.

"Peter?" I clear my throat, firming my voice. "Peter, are you all right?"

He grins wryly, though there is an edge of desperation to his eyes, and they do not leave mine as he sighs. "I was going to ask you the same question, Spengs." He grips me harder, and I feel my strength begin to return slowly. "You scared the hell out of me!"

I look around, taking in the room. A smoking PKE meter sits on the table beside the bed, the heart monitor bolted to the wall above it silent, but showing a distressing flatline--

I turn to Peter, panicked, and he smiles, gesturing to the EEG leads that litter the bed around us, cast off by the force of...

"What happened?"

In response, that wry grin. He's stronger, I suddenly realize. His face, still skeletal, is white now, not gray. His hands hold me firmly, if not truly tight yet. He...

"I don't know, Spengs, but I sure wouldn't have figured sex as the cure for this."

Sex?

Vague images of need, of heat, of power flood my mind, overwhelming me for a moment. "The demoness. Residual power..."

"Yeah," he admits, a darkness coming over his eyes as they finally turn from my face. "That was just residual. Imagine what it was like to face that full force."

Of course. Pranthi's residual signature must have had the same abilities she did--it needed the same things. But this time...

"I need a meter," I whisper. The laugh I'm met by is so much clearer than the muddied weak chuckles I have received from him in recent days that my eyes shoot back to his face, taking in the animation there.

"I think we fried that one, Egon," he offers, moving gingerly to one side to allow me to collapse against the headboard. "I'd get up and get you another one, but..."

His sigh is still too weak, and I reach over carefully, taking his wrist in my hand. The electricity is gone now. A faint hope grows in my heart, and I swing my legs to the floor. I have to be sure--

"Whoa, Spengler!" Peter catches me awkwardly as I fall back, my legs too unsteady to hold me. Perhaps it was merely the confusion of the situation, but I did not notice until this moment how completely exhausted I am. Peter's bony arms wrap around me as he pulls me back to rest against his chest. "Relax a minute, Egon. She... takes a lot out of you. Trust me."

There is such deep sadness in his voice, I twist my head up and to the side, watching him stare into space.

"Peter, are you all right?"

He gives a self-deprecating snort. "I'm saved, Spengs. What's not to be all right?"

"Peter--"

He silences me with a firm squeeze and a light kiss on the top of my head. "Just rest, Egon. It... doesn't take long before you feel better." His dark tone deepens. I need to know what he's feeling, but... I am _so_ tired...

"Anyway, she's gone." He sighs deeply, resting his cheek on my head. "I could kind of... feel her all along. I don't feel anything now."

That final sentence, despairing in the extreme, jolts me from the beginnings of a doze.

"Peter, please, tell me--"

He won't discuss it. The painful stricture of his emaciated arms against my rib cage says as much. He laughs suddenly, a cool, far from normal sound. "How are we going to explain this to Ray?"

He'll tell me when he's ready. At the very least, when I've recovered, I'll drag it from him. I pick up his train of conversation, letting him off the hook for the moment.

"Perhaps the better question is how we will explain this to Winston." Raymond always knew about the beginnings of our relationship. While Winston... understands our preferences, I don't believe the subject of Peter and I has ever come up.

"Winston knows we used to be an item, Spengs. I think he'll deal."

I look up again, startled, though keeping my eyes open is becoming increasingly difficult. "He knows?"

"Well I didn't think it was much of a secret, Egon," he throws back tightly. "It was all ancient history, anyway."

Ancient history... Strange. Right now, as I feel sleep pulling me forcefully into the darkness, it doesn't feel like ancient history to me...

In fact, it feels a good deal like current events.

* * *

Explaining "it" proved rather... surreal.

I was awakened by a violent cry from Ray, and found myself still in Peter's arms. He was only then waking himself, and we probably provided a rather vivid picture that, no doubt, Winston and Ray could have done without. At least Peter had managed to worm the blankets out from under us and cover our bodies with them some time after I fell asleep.

I did feel better, though the slightly strained discussion left me as exhausted as I had been before. It was... most difficult to come up with the words to explain the situation, but the blown meter actually had enough memory still intact to help us piece together exactly what happened--which has been a boon for me, as I remember almost nothing beyond Peter's and my discussion of our early college relationship. I clearly remember the _feeling_ of it, but the details remain a mystery.

The energy left over in Peter's body when we trapped the rakshasi had been feeding off of him in the same way she had done, and would eventually have used up what few resources he had remaining to him and died itself from lack of nourishment. Apparently, given what it saw as a willing--and male--energy source, it used what skills it had at its disposal to evoke the same desire in me that Pranthi had used so ably against Peter himself. But it was not strong enough to contain that power, being only a shadow of itself, and the influx of energy was enough to force its dissolution.

Winston told me yesterday, as he all but carried me to the bunkroom, that he would have Dr. Light see Peter today and give him a comprehensive exam, just to be sure. But it is obvious to us all that, with the energy drain gone from his system, Peter can--and damn well _will_ \--recover.

Surprisingly, Winston took all of this rather well. His religious convictions have, thankfully, never extended to a hatred of certain... atypical desires. He was simply glad to know that the problem had been solved--though he did quip good-naturedly that what greeted him when he and Raymond returned from the airport was a scene he would not have chosen to be party to. Raymond too seemed happy in his usual exuberant way, though he has shown a predictable guilt that he did not think beyond the normal range and come up with it himself.

And I am... content. In a way I have not been content for a very long time--some seventeen years, to be precise. While the others have expressed worry over the apparent "possession" of my faculties, I find myself unbothered. Certainly, had it been the rakshasi herself who possessed me, I would likely be coping differently. But ultimately, she had little to do with my actions, at least directly.

It was Peter.

Peter's need, his body's instinctive knowledge of what it needed, and most importantly his love for me... those were the things that drove the remnants of Pranthi's energy to make the connections it did. Given our rather frank discussion of the feelings we have each been hiding from the other since that summer, I can only be glad that the connection was made at all, whatever the consequences.

But therein, as they say, lies the problem. Peter has been used again--and worse, _I_ have been used for him. I know this is the way he sees it.

And now, after nearly twenty hours of a sleep akin to unconsciousness, I had better get to work at making him see things differently.

 

"Egon, he's _eating_!"

Ray's joyful exclamation meets me at the bottom of the stairs, and I cannot help but smile. His movements have finally lost their stiffness after the injury to his back, though he stills holds his shoulder to ginger shiftings. And he is himself again. I sense he and Peter have had a heart to heart, as his eyes are no longer shadowed by the guilt I saw him them before I collapsed yesterday. But he is still worried, and he reaches out to take my arm, as if he fears I cannot make it to Peter's room unaided, though I obviously managed the stairs.

"Are you feeling better?" he asks anxiously. His faint blush is almost amusing, and I fear he would rather there had not been such a... sexual... answer to this crisis. "It must have..."

I must rescue him, really. This simply is too great a strain on his innocent composure. My hand on his brings a reluctant end to his nervous flow of words. "It did, Raymond. But I feel quite rested now, thank you."

His smile returns to its former brightness for a moment, then drops as he stops me in the middle of the garage. "That's good, cause I think Peter..." He meets my eyes with a candor out of proportion to his former shyness. "You've got to tell Peter this wasn't his fault, Egon." His hand squeezes mine worriedly. "It wasn't. You know that, right?"

"Of course I know that, Raymond." I can see that he didn't truly believe I blamed Peter, and he smiles at the vindication of his own thoughts. "But I am sure Peter feels he used me in the same way he was used," I explain quietly. "He isn't likely to recover from this easily."

"No," Ray agrees in a murmur. Suddenly his head comes up, his smile bright as sunshine. "But he will," he assures me. "He has us!"

There are times I stop and praise whatever fate brought Ray Stantz into my life. I believe I would be a much colder person without him by my side.

As cold as I would be without Peter.

Janine meets me at her desk, and the hug she gives me is timid in the extreme... This will be the difficult part. As many years as she has known about me, I fear she still feels there is some sort of chance... there is a hope that someday...

I pray that Peter will soon be able to tell her that there is no hope for anyone but him... ever again.

At least the relief in her eyes is genuine. She is as glad to know that we will have Peter around to annoy us for some time to come as I am.

"The second he's on his feet, I get a vacation," she says sharply, striving for the old, acerbic tone. What she settles for is a kind of joyful pronouncement. "And don't you dare let him talk you out of it."

"I believe, at the very least, a _paid_ vacation is in order, Janine," I tell her gently, enveloping her in a hug that is more comforting. "Thank you."

She sniffles slightly at my whisper and pushes me away after a moment. "Go help out with him, Egon. I'm tired of playing nursemaid."

"I think you make a great nurse, Janine." Ah Ray... Bide your time, my friend. Someday, she'll come to her senses.

I stop at the door of Peter's sickroom, unable, for the moment, to gather the strength to enter. But Winston sees me instantly, and rises, clapping a tender hand on my shoulder. "How you feeling, Egon?" he asks, a penetrating gaze taking in what I am sure is a rather rumpled figure. "Thought you were going to sleep today away, too."

I catch Peter's eye for a brief second before he looks away, and I am warmed by the concern there. As warmed by it as I am chilled by the glitter of self-loathing.

"I feel much better, Winston, thank you."

He nods, exchanging a glance with me before darting a look at Peter. "I bet you're hungry, though. Ray and Janine and I were going to go out to Hioshi's--want anything?"

"My usual, please," I reply, though sushi is hardly the most pressing matter in my mind at the moment.

He claps me on the back this time, mindful of my still unsteady state. "You got it, buddy." He raises his voice as he quits the room. "Hey guys, we're out of here."

"He didn't ask me if _I_ wanted any sushi."

Peter's gripe tries so hard to sound normal that it is painful to hear. I head for the bed, sliding down to sit on it gratefully and desperately wishing he would look at me.

"I am sure that Dr. Light meant for you to forgo solid foods for just a while longer, Peter." The half-eaten soup on the tray before him looks wonderful--given that I was sure, twenty-four hours ago, that I would never see him eat anything like it again.

"Yeah, well. What's he know?"

The silence between us lengthens, and when I cannot stand it any longer, I reach out to take his hand, running the bony, white fingers through mine.

"How are you feeling?" Not so banal now, these words. Now, they are desperately important.

"Still stupid."

"That's hardly useful, is it?"

He shrugs.

"Peter, will you look at me? Please?"

It takes a long moment, but he finally turns toward me, the anger flashing in his eyes meant solely for himself. "Satisfied?"

"No, I am not." I grip his hand more firmly. "I will not be satisfied until you are well and this is all behind us."

"Oh..." he drifts into silence coldly. "Then you won't be satisfied, will you?"

How can I get through to him? That I know now what he went through will only cause him more pain and shame. I know what he went through because he did the same to me... How...?

"You better?"

His seemingly diffident comment is laced with concern.

"Yes, Peter. I'm fine."

He turns on me coldly, snorting a painful laugh. "I thought I taught you to lie better than that, Spengler."

"Peter..." Damn it! "I don't blame you for this-- _no one_ blames you. Why can you not see that?"

"Would they have blamed me if you died?" The harsh question has a desperate edge. "Come on, Egon, tell me! Would everything have been all right if I had lived, and you died? Because when I raped you, that's exactly--"

"Peter, stop."

He does, but turns away in shame. I... My God, I never looked at it that way... It explains so much of his own shame and anger at what happened to him. He sees this as having been forced on us both. Neither of us had any choice in the matter, and that, by definition makes it...

"I guess you could call it that," I finally allow. I mustn't shield him from this. He won't thank me.

"That's sure as hell what _I_ called it." There is a pain that goes so deep in his voice. A pain I am not at all sure I can soothe. "Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

"I do trust you, Peter," I assure him, reaching out to touch his face, ignoring his violent rejection of my touch. "I trust _you_."

He is silent a long moment as I manage to turn his face toward me, brushing away the tears he's begun to finally let go of. Finally, in a tiny voice filled with despair he whispers, "I didn't mean... I never would have..."

"No, you never would have hurt me." His eyes close against my words, but I cannot stop until I have made him see. "Peter, I... I cannot stand to watch you like this. I can't stand to think that you blame yourself for what was not your fault. If anyone is to blame--"

"Not you." His angry statement is paired with flashing eyes that bore into my soul, seeing every bit of the shame I harbor. "It sure as hell was not your fault that I went out and got... got raped by some fucking succubus from hell." He is crying in earnest now, and I long to hold him. "And it sure as hell is _not_ your fault that I almost took you with me!"

My hand has never left his face, and now it trails down of its own volition, coming to rest gently against his chest. That too-thin chest that beats with a heart so frail and so very powerful. I understand his anger, his shame--I understand that he feels... He feels as if the tortured has become the torturer... How can I tell him he's wrong?

"Peter, I love you," I whisper finally. "I love you, and you were dying. Do you honestly think I would allow that to happen if I could save you?"

He grabs my hand with returning strength and flings it back at me. "But I didn't give you any _choice_!" He turns away again, his voice dropping to a tortured monotone as he pours out his sins. "It was... I knew what it was like for you--I've been there--but it was so damn _good_ , Egon! Just feeling you, watching you--God, _tasting_ you! It was all about power and taking and--" He breaks down finally, his voice nearly gone. "And I knew you'd want it as much as I did... I knew you sat there and wanted it and needed it and damn near would have begged for it if I hadn't given it to you!" His eyes are black as night now, pupils dilated with his own remembered pain. "You wanted me to have every bit of you--devour every last bit and still be hungry for more. You--you wanted to know you were mine, that no one else could ever touch you..." His words turn to sobs. "And you wanted it because I _made_ you want it!"

"You've never made me want to make love to you, Peter," I murmur finally, watching him freeze at my admission. "At least not by forcing it."

"This isn't the same!"

"No," I agree easily. "It isn't the same. This was something outside of both of us--something neither of us could control." I take his hand again, squeezing tight with the effort to reach him. "Peter..." I must be careful now. "When Winston and Ray woke us--when we realized that you were truly safe--do you know what my first thought was?"

"How quick can I get out of here?" The quip is sharp and painful and utterly beneath us both.

"No. My first thought was: why did we wait so long?"

His eyes flash hard jade at me. "You're kidding." He shakes his head as his free hand begins to pluck at his blanket. "Man, Spengler, you are one sick puppy."

"To say the words," I clarify brutally. "Peter, somewhere in the back of my mind, I've always wanted only you." He stills at the comment, and I press myself to continue. We never spoke about our breakup then, and I see now I should never have let my reticence prevent it. "When we broke up, I reasoned myself away from it. As you said yesterday, I still had you... Just differently." I grip his jaw forcefully, making him meet my eyes. "I don't think I ever wanted you differently, Peter. I always wanted what we had..." The painful bark of laughter catches me unaware, and I let it escape. "I was as terrified as you were. Frightened that you would finally say the words. You would finally admit to me that the reason we broke up was because you didn't love me in that way anymore." His eyes close and mine follow quickly. "At least, the way things stood, I could still have you. You were still mine." I stay in the silence, waiting for him.

Please, Peter. Please...

"I... God, Egon, I still want to be..."

"Then _be_ that to me, Peter," I whisper desperately. "Please."

"But how can you even say that when I--"

" _You_ did nothing, Peter!"

"I--"

I cannot lose my temper... I can't--"Damnit, why must I even explain this to you!? You aren't an idiot, after all! You're smart enough to understand when an outside influence is an outside influence!" I peg him with almost vicious eyes. "How can you possibly believe that, under your own power, you'd even be capable of that? How can you think _I_ would believe it!? Possession is involuntary--you don't lose control, it's beaten away from you! Are you telling me you're still blaming yourself for Watt, too?! After five years? Because if that is the case, I believe I have grossly overestimated your intelligence!"

Oh dear.

"Way to lay down the law, Spengler."

The amusement in his voice is almost unbelievable. I look up carefully, hoping against hope that what logic hasn't been able to do, maybe an "infantile display" can. And his eyes... _My_ Peter looks out from the green depths. The Peter who understands that life is sometimes difficult, but that love is what ultimately gets people through the trials... The Peter who learned that lesson so painfully in his youth...

"Peter, please, I'm asking you to trust me to understand." He reaches out of his own volition, taking my hands in his tenderly. "Please? You trusted me once."

His smile bursts forth quietly. "Spengs, I've always trusted you. Shit, that was what scared the living hell out of me in the first place, all those years ago."

"Then trust should go both ways."

His laugh is freer now. Almost home. "Equal and opposite reactions, huh?"

I draw him to me unresisting, reveling in the feel of him--fragile though he still is. "I believe I am speaking more about faith in reality, Peter." The kiss we exchange is chaste, but he still cringes a bit. Ah well... time and love will heal even this. "I believe this reality has been a little skewed of late." Seventeen years late...

"Maybe..." There is a hesitancy there that needs slow work. "Maybe it's time to fix that. Finally." Indeed, and I am still as patient as ever.

And he is still every bit as worth it.

* * *  
The End


End file.
